


anything you can do

by capsize (copenhagenborn)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Ableist Language, F/F, Girl!andrew, Misogyny, Past Child Abuse, Torture, andrew is still raped, but it is not described, canon warnings, genderswap AU, girl!Aaron, girl!Neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 12:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copenhagenborn/pseuds/capsize
Summary: Andrea comes with her gang of misfits speaking a language Leigh hasn’t heard in a while; a cripple, a cousin and a carbon-copy. None of whom seem overly happy about her arrival, “I thought Lee was a boy’s name.” she hears Nicky sulk to Aaren in German. “Does she look like a boy?” She returns with a mean roll of her eyes, looking anywhere but at Leigh. It’s almost silent, but Leigh is sure she hears the small, “No,” as she leaves the room.or where Neil and Andrew are girls, and everything's almost the same.





	anything you can do

**Author's Note:**

> the characters and some of the lines are of course not mine, they are taken from the lovely all for the games series.

**I.**

Natalie Wesninski was never supposed to become the next Butcher, never supposed to be directly linked to the Moriyama’s or the things they were involved in.

For as long as Natalie can remember, there has been a very strict divider between Nathan, her father, and the Butcher of Baltimore. While some might, Natalie never had a problem separating the two. One wouldn’t hesitate to knock her around if she got too mouthy around guest, while the other would only push her out of the room, telling her to go to her mother. Natalie grows up admiring the elegant shift between Nathan and Butcher, how one so easily transforms into the other whenever the phone rings or by a knock on the door. She learns to interpret the small changes in personality, when she has to hide and when she is to be seen but not heard.

Natalie knows everything there is to know about the Butcher, from his skill to his cliental; the way to properly wield a blade if someone gets too close without leaving evidence. Natalie would have become the perfect butcher, but that isn’t her lot in life.

No, Natalie Wesninski is supposed to get a white-collar job and then rise in the ranks through impressive but non-suspicious work until she becomes a trusted employee within the FBI. “Working the problems from the inside,” the Lord had said once with her cheek in hand, pushing it from side to side to inspect her frail face, “A beauty like hers will certainly do wonders inside the bureau.”  Natalie was seven at the time and didn’t care much for being a pretty girl, but she stayed quiet; even then she was skilled at identifying the biggest player in the room.

It doesn’t matter that Natalie is much more prone to violence than the academics her father keeps pushing at her; coming home with bruised knuckles and scraped knees from school with concerned teachers asking if they know why she is acting out. “I’m sorry you took notice of this,” Mary would say, her voice sickly sweet on the phone, “We’ll be sure to keep her in check.” Because while Mary doesn’t like having her daughter’s future set in stone, she cannot have her drawing this much attention to herself, not with the Feds breathing down their necks.

Violence bred violence, as they say, and Natalie is a prime example of hereditary traits.

“A girl like you shouldn’t be involved with violence,” Nathan says one night, sitting at the head of the table overlooking his two bruised girls. His words are lecturing but not unkind, merely stating a fact

Natalie supposes she knows this by now. Seven days spent away from school did teach you at least some of the lesson. “Family time” Nathan calls it when the school rings about her absence.

“Stop crying, little girl. If this scars, you’ll be no use to any of us,” would have been a much better description.

 

**II.**

Natalie Wesninski was never supposed to meet Riko Moriyama, wasn’t even supposed to know his name except in the vague way everyone knew the up and coming 'Son of Exy’. She also wasn’t meant to catch his attention, racquet in hand talking with the only other girl on the Ravens team. But then, Natalie has always had trouble following directions. 

“What are you doing here girl?” Riko yells from across the court, forcing Kevin to come to a halt in the middle of a pass. “This is a closed practice and you’re not allowed in here!”

Natalie hasn’t thought much of this tiny little guy who has just barely started to put on muscle, his voice still light and squeaky as he talks. Riko isn’t anyway near her father’s size, and Nat has taken down school yard bullies scarier than Riko.

“If this is practice, then why aren’t all of your players on the court?” She yells back, head cocked towards Thea who somehow seems smaller than the imposing figure she had been when Nat first started talking. “Exy is a team game, is it not?”

Riko is furious, fuming with his racquet gripped tightly in his hands. A looming Kevin, just a bit taller than him, hiding behind his shoulder as he subtly studies Nat’s correct stance with the racquet.

Tetsuji is present somewhere in the corner of Nat’s eye, but even he didn’t want to be the one stuck in between the Butcher’s daughter and Riko Moriyama. He knows the rumors of Nathan’s reign as a parent, and while Riko might have been born cruel and malicious, he isn’t used to the systematical violence like Natalie, doesn’t know what that does to a person.  

“Thea is not ready to take a place on the court, she knows this.”

“Are you saying it’s not because she’s a girl?” Nat yells back faux-confused, her brows cocked as she twirls the racquet between her fingers, “Because I’m pretty sure Thea has seniority over most of the guys on the court right now.”

“It is a universal truth that girls are weak and require more training, discipline, to get used to the force of the game. Cannot have them wailing if the ball hits them too hard.” There are a few laughs from the older players, guys scattered around Riko in a half circle as he moves halfway across the court. “Like dogs learning not to bite their masters.”

Natalie Wesninski wasn’t supposed to meet Riko Moriyama, and she certainly wasn’t supposed to catch the ball he had intended for her face in what seemed to be an impossibly quick movement of her racquet.

 

**III.**

Natalie Wesninski was always supposed to get a new name when starting High school.

It had been a very constant requirement of Natalie’s future that when she moved away for boarding school in her freshman year, she would no longer be associated with the Wesninski name, much less the Moriyama’s. “The Feds don’t recruit criminals, Natalie, never mind Japanese mobsters who make out 50 percent of their workload.”

She was supposed to become someone innocent and girly, like Nanna Fields. A tragic orphan girl with a stellar academic record and no ties to keep her in a place too long. She would have been the perfect Fed, steering them astray and towards competitors allowing the Moriyama’s to expand their reign.

Then Exy happens and Riko demands her as his player - deep rooted misogyny or not, Riko always wants the best. There are enough pretty girls to become federal agents; only a few who has the talent to become a brilliant backliner, and Exy is ever the lucrative business.

But Riko doesn’ play well with others and certainly not someone with teeth as big as Nat’s.

So it really isn’t a surprise when Mary comes in the middle of the night and tells her to pull out the duffle from under her bed. They had been playing the get-away game ever since Natalie could walk without support, “What do you do if I tell you it’s time to go?” Mary would demand, her voice low and something that might have sounded casual if you didn’t see her eyes.

“I pick up my bag and go into the car. I don’t call for daddy and I don’t make a sound.” Nat would say, reciting the words she had known as long as Wesninski had been her name.

“That’s my good girl.” Mary would coo, her hand squeezing Nat’s shoulder in a rare display of affection.

This time isn’t a game and Nat doesn’t disappoint, up and out of the house in less than five minutes – nothing short of a personal best.

“From now on, your name is Alexandra Williams – Alex for short – and you know absolutely nothing about Exy. Do you understand?” Mary asks, throwing a bunch of papers and a passport at her before turning on the car and pulling out of the driveway.

“Yes mom.” Natalie, _Alex_ prompts and folds the papers into a side pocket of the duffle bag.

“We’ll stop by the shop for some hair dye and then we’ll be on our way to England. You do remember Uncle Stuart, don’t you?”

 

**IV.**

Natalie was always supposed to become an orphan, but not like this.

 

**V.**

Natalie was supposed to stay away from Exy and she did, for a while.

It is hard being on her own, knowing her mother is dead and losing her entire safety net with her. It is hard watching her mother’s corpse burn inside the car that enight knowing she has nothing to go back to.

But her mother didn’t die for Nat to be killed within minutes of her.

So Nat picks up the knife lying abandoned by the road and goes over to the other car. She’s in a hurry and she really needs this car if she wants to get out of the state by tomorrow. She drags the shallow breathing body out of the car door and dumps him by the growing ashes of her mother’s body. “I’m going to kill you now Greg, but you already knew that.” She tells him plainly as she quickly and efficiently slits his throat in a swift move. Her mother hated loose ends, and now Natalie even more so couldn’t afford them.

When she has properly disposed of the body, she climbs into the car and drives the opposite way of where they had come from – better to change the plans if Greg somehow managed to tattle.

Leigh Josten starts school with hair a horrible bleach blonde color and eyes a dull brown, everything to subtract from her beauty as her mother had so nicely put it. “Pretty girls are not safe, Stefanie,” Mary said one night when Stefanie came home with an armful of Valentine’s cards from the boys in her class, “You attract too much attention to yourself, stop it!”

That night she received a beating and a lesson in how to know when a guy wanted you to be quiet and when he wanted you to be talkative, “and then you do the opposite. Don’t reject him, don’t ignore him. You have to turn it on him until he can’t be around you anymore. That’s when you know he’ll forget you. You can’t become the one that got away, boys remember that stuff.”

Stefanie stored it next to the lesson about flirting your way into free stuff and easier access, the dumb girl act for when someone was asking for ID, and the fake crying for tickets she couldn’t afford to have pinned to her name. All necessary information for a girl on the run.

Leigh was supposed to graduate high school, get her diploma and get the hell out of Millport. But squatting in an empty house in a city with nothing to do was brilliant catalyst of disaster, no matter the conditions.

She tells Coach Hernandez that she’s never played before, that it seemed like fun but she never had the time. He makes her a striker and gives her a few books on the sport – like Leigh doesn’t already know everything there is to know about Exy.  

It’s a familiar feeling having the racquet back in her hand, lighter than the one she played with at Evermore, heavier than Little League, but right nonetheless. She runs faster than she should have, makes moves that she learnt at the Ravens and shouldn’t be in the repertoire of an amateur, drawing unnecessary attention to herself. But during those few minutes she spends on the court, she finally feels alive. She forgets about her mother being dead, forgets about her father wanting _her_ dead, about the Moriyama’s and what she’s supposed to do after High school, because Mary never had a plan for that.

She doesn’t think, she just plays.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s worth dying for.

 

**VII.**

Leigh Josten was never supposed to meet Kevin Day, and she certainly wasn’t supposed to play on the same team as him.

They lose the game, doesn’t qualify for the final rounds and for a second, Leigh thinks this might it be. She could go back to school the next day and finish high school, get a mediocre job and stay for as long as she can before she has to run again; say goodbye to Exy, once and for all.

As she sits there with the cigarette burning down to the filter, she thinks she might be able to do that.

But then, fate’s always been a sucker for a plot twist and Coach Wymack might be the biggest one yet. With Wymack comes Kevin and that’s when Leigh balks and runs. She’s halfway through the locker room when someone takes a swing and Leigh goes sprawling onto hands and knees. Leigh doesn’t need much time to identify her assailant; five foot flat, blonde hair and dead eyes belonging to no other than Foxes’ Freshman goalie, Andrea Minyard.

“Better luck next time,” she says, tapping her temple in a salute before tossing the racquet back to Leigh and retreating to her place at Wymack’s side. It brings her an odd sort of ease, watching Andrea take her place next to Wymack without a flinch. This large man with an imposing figure is everything Leigh has been running from her entire adult life, and now suddenly he wants her to put her life in his hands, everything Mary had warned her against, “Men can’t be trusted and on one’s doing anything nice for you without wanting something back.” But Andrea’s a Fox for a reason, and there she is, standing loyally beside Wymack without a word of malice.

Seeing Kevin is a different kind of experience.

The number on his cheek is permanent now, a constant reminder that he’ll never be as good as Riko. Leigh feels sick knowing it will never wear off like it used to.  But more importantly so, Kevin doesn’t recognize her. He’s not supposed to, it’s been years since they met and with the change of hair and eyes, it would be near impossible for anyone to recognize her. But Leigh is her father’s daughter and the years have only made it more so. And even then, Kevin doesn’t recognize her.

For now, that’s enough for Leigh.

She signs with Wymack and doesn’t look back.

 

**Interlude.**

Andrea comes with her gang of misfits speaking a language Leigh hasn’t heard in a while; a cripple, a cousin and a carbon-copy. None of whom seem overly happy about her arrival, “I thought Lee was a boy’s name.” she hears Nicky sulk to Aaren in German. “Does she look like a boy?” She returns with a mean roll of her eyes, looking anywhere but at Leigh. It’s almost silent, but Leigh is sure she hears the small, “No,” as she leaves the room.

Leigh blows out her arms trying to score on Andrea and realizes just why the Foxes stays a Class I team with only ten members.  She also learns that Andrea doesn’t play Exy unless there’s something in it for her, not for Kevin’s sake, not for the team’s.

The Ravens transfers to their district and Leigh feels the noose around her neck become just a bit tighter.

She meets the rest of the team and Matt takes her back to Fox Tower and helps her move her things into the girls’ room. “You are with Dan, Renee, and Allison. I’m in the next room with Nicky and Seth, who you’re going to meet later, and at the end is Andrea, Aaren, and Kevin.”

Leigh nods and lets him go to the airport. It doesn’t matter who she’s staying with, when May comes around, she will be long gone.

Nicky comes into her room with a lump of clothes and a request for her to take her contacts out. “I like brown,” Leigh says with a frown, cocking her hip to fill out the door frame more effectively. “Andrea doesn’t, take them out please. No one is going to see you but us, don’t wear them.” He leaves after that.

She goes to Columbia, dressed in black and eyes a chilly blue. She doesn’t remember leaving and wakes up with Nicky’s arm around her. She leaves through the window, with a sizeable lump near her ear and just enough change to call Dan.

She doesn’t hitch a ride like she planned to do, not when Dan asks her to stay put and wait for Matt. “Are you saying I can’t?” Leigh bristles through the phone, because she can and has done so multiple times.

“I’m saying you shouldn’t have to.” There’s defeat in her voice, like she’s seeing something Leigh isn’t and it’s crushing her spirits. So she stays at the gas station until Matt comes for her.

She spills a bit of truth to get Andrea off her back, a bit too much for comfort, and asks her permission to stay. “I’ll be gone by our match against Edgar Allan. I can’t risk Riko recognizing me.”

“Such an unexpected will to survive from someone who has nothing to live for. Next time we have a little heart-to-heart like this, maybe I’ll ask you to justify that.” There’s something other than utter disinterest when she speaks, but it’s gone the minute Leigh realizes it’s there.

 

**VII.**

Natalie Wesninski was never supposed to be a team player.

An Exy player yes, but never a part of a team. She was an asset to be used to aid Riko’s pursuit of fame, like the rest of the team she was there to ensure their success but always by putting Riko first. The Ravens didn’t encourage teamwork. They worked in pairs, a risk as much as it was a reward.

Leigh remembers her short period at Evermore, before Mary found the abuse to be intolerable; after Nathan reluctantly had given up his daughter to the bastard sport he hated. She was paired with Jenkins, a frail girl with a wicked sense of game understanding. Before coming to Evermore she had played as a defensive dealer, perfect for her smaller figure and shy personality. But Riko didn’t need another dealer, he needed a backliner.

“You do not mind, do you?” Riko had mocked when Jenkins first arrived, shuffling her feet by the outskirts of the court, racquet loose in her hand. “I mean girls are just as strong as boys, are they not?” Whenever the two of them would be punished, either by Riko and his posse of upperclassmen or running never-ending drills at the hands of Tetsuji, Riko would repeat that phrase; trying to taunt her into believing he was right, but Natalie never cracked. “Yes, Riko. They really are,” she would say, teeth red from blood and lying on the cold court floor, Jenkins crying by her side.

She learnt to hate the rest of her team, to resent Jenkins for her failures, because all everyone wanted was to watch each other crash and burn.

The Foxes did it differently.

They may not have the smooth workings of a well-oiled machine like the Ravens did, nor did they lack the internal struggles, but they had each other’s backs and maybe that made up for the rest of their flaws.  

She scores twice against Breckenridge and it’s not enough to win them the game, but she still feels the victory cursing through her veins.

The entire time before the interview feels like a blur; Kathy’s being nice in the way that makes Leigh’s skin crawl, Kevin’s threats and quick shifts between Kevin and Kevin Day, International Exy Star, and then she’s being put in front of a camera, which wasn’t a good idea in the first place – even before they brought out Riko.

It’s not all about Kevin, she realizes as she runs her mouth, chewing Riko out more thoroughly than she’s ever done before. It’s about her and her position on the team, Dan’s, and Thea’s, Jenkins’ too. Because while the teams in their league are generally bad at promoting female players, the Ravens has the absolute worst female to male player ratio Class I Exy has ever seen. She thinks she somewhere along the way side-eyes Kevin too, but she can’t be sure, not when she’s moved on to other topics like the supposed friendship between Kevin and Riko and how the tattoos never should have happened.

And then Kathy is saying goodbye, thanking Leigh behind the cameras for the best ratings they’re going to have in ages. Leigh lets herself move to Kevin’s side and steps between him and Riko before Andrea comes to take her rightful place, dull eyes and wicked smile as she tells him off.

She goes to Eden’s with the monsters and Andrea keeps her drinks clean, it not a kindness but it’s also not _not_ , and Leigh takes what she can get; take the half-promise of a vague safety she’s not even sure Andrea can provide. But no one has offered before and only fools don’t try.

She loses a team mate and gains a home, and isn’t that the kind of bargain she has come to know so very well?

 

**VIII.**

Natalie Wesninski had always been a part of a family, albeit not a loving one.

This was different.

This is Aaren and Kevin moving the chairs around to make her a seat on the couch next to Andrea; Dan and Matt fixing her schedule so she just a bit more time to sleep, the steady-stream of support during the game; Nicky and Matt giving up the showers while Kevin and Dan handle the press. It’s everything Leigh thought it wouldn’t be and all the more wonderful.

Well, Aaren pushing a list of single football players into her hand with a dreaded reluctance is amongst the things Leigh could have lived without.

Andrea buys her a phone and bullies her into taking it, “Your parents are dead, you are not fine, and nothings is going to be okay. This is not news to you. But from now until May you are still Leigh Josten and I am still the woman who said she would keep you alive.”

They do the question exchange, and maybe Leigh likes having something to trade with – small pieces of herself that someone else wants, pieces she is willing to give if it pleases her.

They go to the banquet and somehow Leigh ends up wearing the first dress she has in years. It’s long and flowy with long sleeves and opaque chiffon covering the parts of her body she doesn’t want to show off. It’s too considerate, too knowing, for Allison to have picked out, but Leigh doesn’t mention it, not when Andrea doesn’t even spare her a second glance.

Leigh meets Jean for the first time in person when he’s mouthing off names he shouldn’t know, “What was your name again? Alex? Stefanie? Christine?” It’s enough to steal her breath away. A clear threat as he watches her with hawk-like eyes, not cunning like Riko’s or dead like Andrea’s; disapproving, is what Leigh gets from him.

“It’s Leigh.” She tells him slowly before they’re dragged away to another table.

He comes again, calling her something else; something truer in a sense, but also not. It’s a promise and a threat, and now she’s all the more exposed, ripped apart and left bleeding for Kevin to scavenge the remains for the bits of truth he can extract.

She should run.

They’re both saying it and Leigh almost does, watching the fear so clearly written in Kevin’s face. But she doesn’t want to, and now, according to Andrea, she doesn’t have to.

They play the Ravens and they don’t win, no one expected them to. But Kevin was right, they might have a chance.

Thanksgiving happens, and Leigh has to pull a bloody sheet around a laughing Andrea. Leigh wants to ask her to stop, beg her and yell at her that this isn’t a laughing matter, that what Drake did was wrong and shouldn’t be handled like this. But Andrea has heard it all before and she doesn’t want her half-assed apologies. She’s talking and trembling and Leigh wants to push her back into the bed, but Andrea’s never been a fan of physical contact, even less so now.

But even then, in her trauma-induced near psychosis, Andrea makes sure Aaren is okay, and maybe that’s when it finally clicks for Leigh. That Andrea’s destructiveness stops at herself, that her family, Aaren, Nicky, Kevin, and now Leigh are more important to her than anything else in the world; so important that she would come here, to Luther’s house knowing what he knew, what _she_ told him, because they asked her to.

Aaren is arrested, and Betsy sends Andrea away.

Leigh takes Kevin, and Andrea calls her a liar. “Trust me,” she says and pushes her hand underneath her shirts, feeling Andrea’s fingers on the stiff tissue of her scars. Andrea’s fingers twitch and Leigh is still a liar, but she gives her Abra; it’s not the truth but maybe it’s close enough.

 

**IX.**

Once, Natalie Wesninski was supposed to live at Evermore.

Leigh remembers being showed the room that was going to be hers. Riko walking eagerly just a step ahead of her and talking about the significance of being a Raven, the infamy and the respect it would bring; Kevin following close at his heel.

“We have a room empty here, it is the closest to mine and Kevin’s, but because you are a girl, you can’t have that.” Riko had said, cringing at the world. In line with Natalie’s improvement in the sport, Riko had been making a big deal over the fact that she was a girl; either going to lengths of completely degenderizing her, pushing himself to believe that she wasn’t a girl, she was just an Exy player who looked like a girl, or on the hand taunting her endlessly over the fact that women never would be able to play as well as men.

Natalie had not taken well to either.

“And why can’t I stay there?” She had said with a frown, poking her head into the room and looking skeptically at dark red walls – it looked like a completely normal room to her.

It was Kevin who spoke up, a matching frown on his face as he said, “It’s in the boys’ hall. Jean is going to live there when the deal is settled. You can’t, you can’t live with a _boy_ , Wesninski.” He sounded outraged at the very idea of it.

“And why can’t I do that? Jean is to become a backliner, is he not?” It wasn’t a fight Riko was going to let her win, but Wesninski’s weren’t prone to giving up.

It didn’t matter anyway, she left before Jean came along; two ships passing in the night.

 

Leigh goes with Allison and Renee to the banquet, fancy dresses with long sleeves and blonde hair piled on top of her head to make her feel taller. It almost helps.

She stays with Kevin at the drinks table and steps between him and Riko. Riko makes threats and promises about knives he doesn’t even know how to handle, and it’s a bit like reclaiming a slur when she calls herself the Butcher’s daughter, voice strong and smile cruel.

He touches her cheek where the others have numbers and she tells Kevin to leave. He twists her wrist and tells her a name he shouldn’t know. She almost doesn’t believe him, wants to tear out of his grip and take Kevin where he can’t hurt either of them. But then he tells her about Andrea and the doctors he bought, and Leigh’s never been good at restraint, so she tackles Riko to the floor and yells until Wymack’s dragging her off.

She wants to kill him, slowly and thoroughly, but she settles for digging her fingers into Wymack’s arm, sneering at the Breckenridge coach until she bites her tongue and tells Riko she’ll come. Because what else can she do?

She lies and sends Kevin off to New York with the boys and Aaren.

Jean is waiting for her when she comes to Virginia, telling her she shouldn’t have come, like she had a choice in the first place. It’s mocking when he welcomes her, “Take a look at the sky,” he says and gives her a tour she’s already had.

He stops in front of a room and she snorts, bordering on a laugh Andrea would have been proud of. “Are you sure this is where Riko wants me?” she asks instead, tapping the black door with a finger.

“Are you saying I’m lying?” Jean spits, voice almost angry but it’s too devoid of emotion to really make an impression.

“I’m not a boy is what I’m saying, or has Riko changed his mind on women in Exy?” he hadn’t, but she doesn’t need Jean to tell her that. She steps through the door and watches with quiet amazement the almost perfect preservation of Kevin’s side of the room, as if Riko needed the room to think Kevin was someday coming back to the Ravens. “I thought Riko didn’t want Kevin to come back,” she says and it’s only partly a joke.

“You don’t know anything.” Jean replies. He doesn’t wait around for Leigh to follow as he leaves, but she catches up quickly and then they’re through to inner court. The team leaves and Jean shoves a jersey at her, it’s almost a relief when she sees the name on the back.

“I’m not transferring,” of that she’s sure. Jean calls her ignorant and points her towards her gear. “Not a fan of privacy?” she says sourly, but Jean doesn’t react – either not caring or already having looked through her – so she strips.

Two truths and a lie; Jean had always belonged to the Moriyama’s, Leigh is a backliner, and Wymack is Kevin’s father.

If there’s anything she learns during her stay at Evermore, it is that time is what you make it into, an illusion. She spends three weeks at Evermore, but comes home after two.

She’s scarred and bruised, unwanted ink on her cheek but she calls Wymack and he comes, quicker than she would have thought possible. She doesn’t remember leaving the airport, much less the walk from the car to the apartment, but it doesn’t matter. Not when she pulls off her bandages and reveals auburn hair and a 4 etched into her skin, a face much too akin to someone she doesn’t want to remember.

She tries and fails, but Wymack is there, right behind her and she owes him a lot more than she gives, but it’s enough for now.

She’s still a Fox and Andrea is coming home in two days.

 

**Interlude pt. II**

They leave Matt behind when they go to get Andrea. Four of them in a car that isn’t theirs without the one thing that brought them together, driving in silence.

“I am not property.” She tells Kevin while they wait, and it’s almost a truth.

Andrea slides into the driver’s seat and Leigh hands over her keys, flinching when Nicky touches her. She doesn’t ask and Leigh doesn’t tell. At least not until later, when the rest of them have left.

“Did I break my promise or were you keeping yours?” She asks, fingers hovering just a breath away from Leigh’s face but she doesn’t touch her.

“I spent Christmas at Evermore.” And then Andrea’s tearing off the bandages, picking at the tape and pulling it away until she exposes her cheek. She keeps her face blank and covers Leigh’s mouth when she over-speaks, mentioning people she should have known better not to.

“I don’t need your protection.” She says and she’s properly right, but it won’t hurt her to have Leigh covering her back. “I hate you,” she tells her then, calling her an illusion, a pipe dream, making Leigh frown deeper than she’s ever done before.

She’s still losing time so Andrea finds her at the library. She follows her back to the car and when she pulls out the charger, there’s a key attached to it. She doesn’t ask, but then Andrea probably doesn’t expect her to.

She’s still benched from playing, so she trades her scars for Andrea’s cooperation. The girls leave and Andera slips into the dorm carrying a new bag of clothes that she sets down on Dan’s bed. Andrea gestures to her shirt, but doesn’t say anything as she struggles her way out of the loose jersey she’s wearing; only stopping her when she goes to undo her bra from behind, “That’s enough.” Andrea says quietly and steps just a bit closer.

Andrea removes the bandages for a second time but this time she’s touching skin, letting her fingers follow the odd patterns of raised skin and puckered flesh, outlining the bullet hole with shaky fingers and pushing until Leigh sways her back. “Someone shot you,” she sounds in awe and for a second, Leigh doesn’t know how to reply.

“I told you someone was after me.”

“This is not from a life on the run.” She keeps circling back to the iron mark on her shoulder, shifting between cupping her hands around the red skin, hiding it from her view, and studying it with sharp eyes. “A murder magnet like you shouldn’t walk around unarmed.”

“I thought you were going to watch my back this year,” Leigh says instead, arching her back until Andrea drops her hand, expression unreadable. She lets her dress in silence, waits outside the dorm until she comes and then offers her an unlit cigarette on their way to the car.

“Why does Rebecca think you’re tying me down?” she asks, coming back with a tray between unsteady hands and a German tongue.

It’s the first time she sees Andrea hesitate, glass halfway to her mouth as she glances at Leigh’s hands where Riko’s marks used to be. “I hate every inch of you, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go down on you.” It’s drawn out to a drawl and Leigh’s world tilts a bit on its axis, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

“You like me.” She says and suddenly things make all the more sense, but also not. “You never said anything.”

“I’m self-destructive, not stupid.” It doesn’t help her anymore, but she affirms and gives Andrea her turn; she doesn’t want it and leaves instead, only coming back when it’s time to leave.

 

Leigh promised Kevin to win, so she starts with Kasper.

Kasper’s nice, is the thing, and not like other mediocrely attractive guys Leigh has met through her life who wants nothing but to get you alone. He asks about her vacation and then tells her about his sister’s pregnancy, the gifts he bought them, and would she like to see a picture?

He’s observant too, quickly stopping his ramblings when he notices Leigh isn’t listening, “You wanted to talk about Aaren?” he reveals secrets Leigh shouldn’t know, things Aaren would kill her for knowing but it helps her, even if both Kasper and Aaren is none the wiser.

“She needs to talk to Andrea.” Leigh says, “Help me make that happen.”

She doesn’t get a promise but maybe it’s enough that he knows, because Leigh needs her to give Andrea another chance. 

It’s their first game back and Riko is there with Jean by his side, dark hair and even darker tattoos proud on their cheeks. But right now, right here, it doesn’t matter, not when the Foxes win another game. She watches Renee approach the pair with bright eyes and friendly hands, it only half-works but then again, Leigh couldn’t have asked for more.

She joins Kevin and the reporters and denies a transfer to Edgar Allan.

She pushes against him on their way to the changing rooms and says, “You can’t be afraid of him anymore.” He is and he doesn’t know how to change it. Leigh wishes she could tell him how, but Kevin’s fear is different, specially conditioned to Riko and the Moriyama’s, the hold they have over his future; Leigh’s always lived with the knowledge that she wouldn’t make it to twenty – she wouldn’t know how to fear not making it past that.

 

Their cars are trashed and Aaren comes after her.

But Aaren either didn’t know they weren’t alone, or she was planning on Andrea coming all along, tackling Allison to the ground with only Renee in between them. Matt tries, but there’s nothing he can do and it’s killing him; Kevin doesn’t even move.

“That’s enough, Andrea.” Leigh says in soft German, close enough to touch her but instead she reaches for Renee and steadies her head in the awkward position looking at Andrea from the ground up. “You promised you’d have my back this year, that includes keeping us in the game and you’re not doing that right now.”

“Fuck you.” Andrea says. She looks up and there’s something other than nothing in her stare, “I won’t break hers to keep yours,” she says instead, and Leigh always feel the way it affects Aaren, the stuttering and quick breaths, hurrying to reassure her.

Leigh had hoped it wouldn’t come as a surprise to Aaren how much her sister loved her, but maybe that’s the missing piece Leigh needed to solve the puzzle.

Andrea relaxes her grip and the girls struggle to their feet with a raging Dan in the background. It’s a step back in the progression Leigh had so finely made, but maybe it’s a step closer to the overall goal.

“I warned you about not putting a leash on me.” Andrea says later, sitting on the roof with a bottle between her fingers. She’s still not looking at her but allows Leigh to sit down at her side. Leigh’s never been good at face to face confrontations, even worst at backing down from them so she says, “I want to see you lose control.”

Leigh leaves before she can reply.

Aaren finds her enraged and with swinging palms, spewing German to keep that single shred of dignity she tries to keep so badly. But Aaren is nothing but a mild inconvenience that needs to get over herself and see things from a perspective that isn’t her own.

 

And then her birthday happens. Blood spilling out of her locker, soaking through her clothes and ruining her uniform. Leigh scolds herself for thinking she would be safe at homecourt, she’s not, she’ll never be. It takes them longer to return to normal, but they do, accepting the oddities as they go.

They win and Leigh offers to clean the locker room; it’s her mess after all and Wesninski’s never leave a trace. But Leigh isn’t a Wesninski and Wymack isn’t cruel. Instead, he makes her captain and she doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’ll be dead come spring.

She calls Andrea and she comes with a judgmental Kevin in the front seat. They make a deal because Andrea is reluctant and doesn’t like charities – Leigh doesn’t either, but she’s not at fault here. Leigh’s money for the dust. It’s not a fair deal, but it’s not a bad one either.

At the roof, she’s given another key and it’s almost too much, but Leigh wants it, badly, because it’s not just a key and Andrea knows it isn’t.

“I’m not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren’t mine.” Andrea says, she has her face in her hands and there’s nothing shielding Leigh from the perfect understanding in her stare as she says, “I’m tired of being nothing.”

They kiss and it’s nothing like the over eager boys and sticky girls she’s kissed before; no one has made her heart stutter and cheeks flush the way they’re doing right now. It’s enough to make her not realize she’s reaching for something to hold onto, but instead of skin she catches soft wool and clenches her fist in the sleeve of Andrea’s shirt.

Andrea retreats just as quickly as she came, and Leigh understands because she’s still a bit blurry around the edges and this shouldn’t be based on uncertainties.

It’s later when she tells her yes that Leigh learns to keep her hands in her pockets, stuffed between her and the wall as they kiss. Andrea’s hands are soft and fleeting, moving swiftly over her waist and her hips, skimming the curve of her breasts but not lingering as Leigh’s breath speeds up. It’s too much, but at the same time it’s not enough. And then Leigh is allowed to tangle her fingers into the blonde locks on top of Andrea’s head. She doesn’t twist and drags, but stirs her into another kiss, her lips a flushed red from kissing.

There’s a hand between her legs and Andrea asking for another yes that Leigh stutters out awfully quickly. Her pants and underwear are around her knees, Andrea’s coarse fingers rubbing her in a way no one has done before, and it’s not until the tutting that Leigh relinquishes the grip of her hair.

Andrea’s fingers are gentle as they enter her, soft and exploring and slowly opening her for another. Andrea talks more than Leigh’s ever heard before; nothing lengthy or meaning, but soft asks whether she wants to keep going, if she’s hurting her, what feels good. Leigh doesn’t know whether it’s how Andrea is during sex or if she knows this is her first time, how meaningful it is for her to allow Andrea to do this to her.

Leigh comes with Andrea’s name on her lips, a sob escaping her as she collapses into the wall.

Andrea kisses her one last kiss, a bruising kiss making her lips hurt as she pulls her hand from Leigh’s legs. When she stumbles, Andrea takes a hold of her arm and leads her to the couch with the same kind of strange gentleness Leigh hasn’t seen from her before. “Do you want me to-“ “No.” and then she goes, leaving Leigh with shaky legs and flushed cheeks.

 

**X.**

Natalie Wesninski always knew Nathan was going to kill her if he caught her, but somehow, she always hoped he wouldn’t.

The count runs out, the Foxes wins against the Bearcats, and Nathan’s out on parole.

There’s a riot, and it’s just enough not to raise suspicion with the Foxes that two strangers are following them out. She leaves her phone with her duffel and gear; a thank you to Andrea, and then she’s gone – stuffed in the backseat of a patrol car.

Lola’s there with her. Leigh remembers her from back when her future wasn’t set in stone and Nathan thought knife wielding might be a fitting skillset for a young woman.  She still doesn’t look like much, but maybe that’s the thing, maybe the most dangerous women appear docile to the lesser knowing.

“it’s a shame we can’t cut up your pretty face, Natalie.” She says tutting, pulling the knife from Leigh’s hands to poke it against the ‘4’ on her cheek. “’The face that would save the family business’ he used to say. Do you remember that? Before you started with that silly little sport of yours, back when you were supposed to do _real_ work. Well, being pretty really isn’t all that hard, is it? But at least you’d be on the winning team, opposed to your Foxes.”

“Have you seen our statistics lately?” Leigh say wryly, keeping her face very still as Lola follows the tattoo’s outline with the knife tip. “I certainly wouldn’t call us losers.”

“Be quiet Natalie.” But she’s smirking as she leans back and steals the lighter from her brother, “I might not be able to touch your pretty features, but this little thing has got to go,” and then she’s pressing the lighter to her cheek. It steals away her breath and she might have vomited if not for Lola’s grip on her face.

“Where’s mommy, Natalie?” Lola asks as she cuts ribbons of her arms, the blood oozing between them. She tells them, but they don’t stop and Lola keeps cutting; cuts until there is no area of skin that isn’t covered in red. She’s still gagging from the metallic taste by the time she passes out.

Nathan Wesninski is still a frightening man, and Natalie is nothing but a mouse in a cat’s cage. It’s almost biblical her undoing, the sloth and the greed she felt, the lust and wrath, prideful thinking she could get away with this, staying in one place too long because it started to feel like a home.

She doesn’t die.

Stuart, an uncle she thought she would never see again, kills father and tells her to keep quiet, Feds on his heels. It’s not enough to give her back her breath, but it’s up there.

 

The Feds bring her Andrea and the Foxes in a crowded room without privacy. But it’s enough; Andrea kneeling beside her with searching fingers and half lidded eyes. “Stop lying to me,” She says, so Natalie switches to German to lose some of the uninvited listeners, not that it stops the rest of them.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Andrea tells her and it’s enough to start a fight between the Feds and the Foxes. But it’s not until Wymack’s asking, calling her Leigh and giving her a choice to say, that she finally lets go of the residual tension in her shoulders and says, “I want to be Leigh for as long as I can.”

Leigh spends two days in a room with the FBI and not once does she leave Andrea’s sight.

She leaves the building as Leigh Josten and allows Abby to lead them into the empty hotel room.  She walks across the mattress with Andrea’s hand hovering at her sides and when she tries and fails to raise her arms above her head, Andrea peels off her shirt with gentle hands, exposing the cuts and burns to air for the first time since her father died.

She thinks she hears Abby muttering a soft ‘oh my god’, but she’s too fixed on the perfectly organized wounds scattering her body; her arms where the burns start a handbreadth above her wrist, high enough to be covered by a long-sleeved shirt, and her chest where the skin of her cleavage and collarbone is untouched – everything to make her appear perfectly fine to anyone else but her torturers.

It’s too much all of a sudden, too much like being back under Lola’s knife, and then she’s being pushed forward, head between her knees and someone’s hand squeezing the back of her neck. “It’s just me Josten, but you need to stop it.” Andrea says slowly, the pressure on her neck increasing until her breathing settles and Leigh forces herself back up. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Andrea and Abby say in perfect unison.

And maybe they’re right, but for the first time in a really long time, there’s a small chance she might be someday. So she tells the Foxes her story, how she always intended to run away before their meet with Riko and then when that didn’t happen, how she didn’t think she would make it through the year.

They all spend the night in the girls’ room, Leigh tucked up against Andrea’ back surrounded by her Foxes, safer than she’s ever been.  

She lets Andrea strip her down and guide her into the shower covered by plastic backs and tape, and when Andrea doesn’t stare at the gathering of scars scattered across her body, a disgruntled sort of knot eases from her stomach. This is okay, she thinks to herself. She can be naked in front of another person without feeling like she’s on the brink of passing out, Andrea is not going to hurt her.

Andrea doesn’t get undressed, but her shirt gets soaked as she stands pressed up against Leigh, black clothes darkening until they’re clinging to both of them, nothing but a sheen of cloth between them. She starts with her hair, short fingers running through auburn hair slowly transitioning into a soft yesses and Andrea on her knees in front of her.

She comes almost quietly, sliding down the slick wall until she’s face to face with Andrea who does nothing but lean forward and place her lips on Leigh’s, a steadying hand on her back keeping them both upright. And then she’s sitting back on her feet, quick hands moving underneath her sweatpants, Leigh eagerly following into the vee of her legs, hands hovering just above her knees while she kisses her way down Andrea’s neck. She watches Andrea come, brown eyes locked on hers as she shakes her way through the orgasm, only closing her eyes when her breath hitches and she finally stills. Leigh doesn’t know if she’s ever seen Andrea more serene, more vulnerable than this, and she thanks whatever deity she doesn’t believe in that she’s allowed this.

When they’re both breathing normally again, Andrea gets her out of the tub and rubs her down with a towel, helping her into dry clothes.

 

Kevin tells Wymack, the Foxes goes to a cabin, and Andrea and Leigh share a bed.

Andrea makes her a drink, whisky neat, and it’s almost a relief when she downs it in one go. She doesn’t like the taste, but it’s more than that when she starts to sip the second glass Andrea pours her. It’s knowing she can drink it and doesn’t have to worry about secrets slipping and people using them against her, it’s Andrea knowing before even her when she wants to stop, it’s her surrounded by Foxes with a warmth pooling in her stomach and an almost-smile on her lips.

And then Aaren bullies her into going to the balcony. It’s strange watching her and not feeling the content she gets from looking at Andrea; the so eerily similar features and mannerisms and still Leigh feels the discomfort churning in her stomach when it’s Aaren in front of her.

She spews shit like she always does, but this time it’s about Andrea; slurs Leigh hasn’t cared for in a while, accusations and lies that tears on her relaxed composition, wearing down the content she had been building the entire night, until she’s punching her with hands that really shouldn’t be used for this, not now at least.

“Do you think she’ll fight for you?” she asks, words cruel but her face calm, searching for something.

Leigh doesn’t.

But that’s okay, Leigh later decides, as long as she can keep this; the two of them in the king-sized bed, Andrea hovering above her and taking her apart until there is nothing left but them, together.  

 

Kengo dies, and Renee goes after Jean. It seems to spark something in Kevin, and Leigh tell him to pick a side, to commit to whatever the hell it is he wants because the middle ground is no longer an option.

It’s only fitting then, that she encounters Ichirou. He doesn’t look like much, the same sharp lines like his father but without the taunting stare of Riko’s. But as he sits there in his bespoke suit, legs neatly crossed and hands in his lap, it is ever so obvious that Ichirou was Kengo’s first son, that he was raised for something other than fleeting fame spun from a bastard sport.

It’s obvious what he’s come for, what he’s trying to find out, and Leigh is anything but subtle when she begs for her life, bargains what little she has left, not yet sure whether she’s ready to give up Exy and the Foxes if that’s what he demands.

But despite name changes and years apart, Leigh was born a Wesninski and she knows how to talk her way out of dealings she would have no place to otherwise be in. Her words carry no value for him, she hasn’t earned his trust and she might never. But Leigh understand the way he thinks, the stuff he wants to hear or at least what he needs to hear; so she tells him about Riko’s destructive value and his effect on the Moriyama investments, about Jean and his injuries as a result of Riko’s rage towards their father, and Kevin playing with his right hand. It’s not what she came to do, but she’s ever slowly and surely stacking a deck that, if he believes her, will result in Riko’s demise, however Ichirou sees it fit.

She leaves the car with a deal for all three of them; they get to live, but more importantly so, she doesn’t have to leave her Foxes.

Andrea’s there when she breaks the news to the boys, watching quietly as Leigh talks before they leave Kevin and Jean alone to their self-loathing misery. “You’re going to need something to live for,” Leigh says when they start to leave the house, “You should choose us.”

Andrea leaves, but not before pushing a set of arm bands into her hands, black and long enough to cover the scarring on her arms; a perfect match to the ones Andrea herself is wearing.

It’s not an answer to what she’s asking, but maybe it is to something else.

And then she goes to play with Kevin, standing in goal as he switches the racquet from right to left hand. It’s the immovable object versus the unstoppable force, and for a while everything’s balanced, two equal forces cancelling each other out. But something has to give, and Kevin isn’t going to come in second anymore, not to anyone.

 

She doesn’t play against the Bearcats, but it’s okay, The Foxes holds down the line and that’s enough for now. They win and the Foxes watches Aaren cross the court, shoving her helmet at Nicky before she’s encased in Kasper’s arms, his small group of friends cheering encouragingly from the stands.

Leigh watches Andrea from the corner of her eye, knowing better than to look for a reaction. She’d been there last Thursday when Andrea thrusted her armbands at her and went to see Kasper, leaving him sobbing in the hallway. It’s not ideal, but neither are the Minyard’s.

It’s later, when Aaren tells her they’re switching rooms, when Nicky’s gaping, and her brain struggles to make sense of Aaren’s jumbled German, that she finally understands what Andrea had done, what Aaren had made her do.

“Last time I checked you hated me,” she says pressed against Andrea’s lips, pushing her down until she’s only just so hovering above her in the beanbag chair. “Everything about you,” Andrea returns, her voice breathless as she pulls her down for another kiss, yesses lost between their lips.

 

It’s the semifinals and they’re playing the Trojans.

There’s a reason they’re a part of the Big Three but with the team they’re using, they’re no competition for The Foxes who have played one man down the entire season. The Foxes win the game and a week later, Jeremy makes Jean’s transfer official.

Kevin shows up in their room the night to Friday with a chess piece tattooed on his cheek, “Let Riko be King. I’m going to be the deadliest piece on the board,” He’s slurring his speech and stumbling through the room, hands working against him as he tries to gesture to the small Queen inked to replace the constant reminder of Riko’s ownership of him.

Andrea crosses the room and stands in front of him, a slow retreat from where she surely was asleep in her bed. She turns his face from side to side, lightly poking the skin of the ink before pulling away, “He is going to be furious,” she says, but she doesn’t sound condemning, please more likely, like an investment of hers just bore fruit, as if she too had been waiting for this exact moment of Kevin’s liberation.

Leigh tells her so when Kevin’s passed out and lone gone from the world, when he doesn’t notice Andrea pushing her against the wall with fierce hands and even fiercer lips, kissing Leigh until they’re both yawning and the sun starts to rise.

Because this is it, Andrea is finally free of all her obligations, no longer anyone to protect or hold back for their own safety; Nathan’s dead and Ichirou won’t let Riko hurt either Leigh or Kevin, Aaren’s, albeit manipulating and unfairly, made her give up her claim on Aaren’s love life and the lack thereof; and Kevin, finally taking a stand against Riko and showing the world that he’s more than a shadow, that he’s meant for something other than being Riko’s brother.

Andrea is free, and she’s staying here with the Foxes, with her.

 

**Interlude pt. III.**

They play The Ravens and for a while it looks like they might win, but the Ravens rallies and the Foxes wasn’t meant to withstand this amount of pressure on the court. So the they switch.

It’s almost fitting how Leigh ends the season how she started out playing Exy, a backliner fighting against Riko.

They tie and Leigh almost fears a shootout, because while she might be holding up the defense line with a believable amount of effort, going against the Ravens’ goalkeeper this exhausted is going to be brutal. It’s not until the buzzer goes off and she falls to her knees, breathing loudly that she finally finds the strength to look at the scoreboard, Ten-Nine, Foxes’ favor that she finally relaxes and lets her body go sprawling onto the court floor.

It doesn’t last long though, because Riko’s a sour loser with murdering tendencies and lying on the floor is being an easy target. She tries to rise but no matter how much strength she tries to summon, it isn’t going to be enough to save her from the incoming racquet.

And then Andrea is there, swinging her racquet like she didn’t just spend forever locking down the goal, and shattering Riko’s arm until he cries out in a mixture between rage and misery.

But it’s done and the Foxes won and Leigh is surrounded by her team like she’s supposed to be.

 

**Epilogue.**

Natalie Wesninski was never supposed to outlive any of the Moriyama’s.

But she does, once, then trice, watching as they die at the hands of the fourth.

“Are you satisfied, Natalie Wesninski?” Ichirou asks.

It’s not her name, not anymore. But she is and she tells him so, and that’s enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this fic has been underways for so bloody long, that when I edited it and got to the point about Jenkins in the book, I was so surprised i hadn't made her up! 
> 
> tumblr @neil-jostx


End file.
